


How You Really Feel

by blackeyedqueen



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cheesy Shiro, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious Keith (Voltron), Pidge is just kind of there to help keith out im sorry, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 05:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10870476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedqueen/pseuds/blackeyedqueen
Summary: Shiro wants to finally tell Keith how he feels.Valentine's Day request: "Shiro wants to take Keith for a ride in his lion (to spend time and confess maybe) but Keith's just not getting it- but Shiro i have my own lion??"





	How You Really Feel

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a valentine's day request posted on my tumblr!
> 
> Is this super cheesy and kind of ooc? Definitely. Is it cute anyway? Yeah, I kinda think so ;). 
> 
> Come visit me: [@fakegenjimain](http://fakegenjimain.tumblr.com) on tumblr, [@marmorasblade](http://twitter.com/marmorasblade) on twitter!

Shiro had thought out a plan to talk to Keith alone. And he planned it for today, specifically. Because, while he knew it was cliche, he wanted it to be romantic. And he wanted Keith to remember how cliche it is, if he ever looks back on it and smiles.

Today is Earth’s Valentine’s day. And today is the day that Shiro is going to talk to Keith. He’s going to tell him everything, how he feels and how he’s always felt.

They had been close before Kerberos. They hiked together in the desert on days off, they sat on the edge’s of cliffs and overlooked canyons, hands close but not quite touching. That seemed a metaphor for their entire relationship at the time. Close, but not quite there. They left things open ended when Shiro was leaving. He didn’t want Keith to wait for him, did’t want him to be tied to him if something were to happen. Wanted him to be the free person that Keith was always meant to be. But Keith waited for him anyway, in the desert they used to hike in, alone and looking for different answers. But now… The hands have retracted but it feels like they’re still reaching.

Shiro can feel it in the way they make eye contact they can’t seem to break, in the way they’ll pat each other on the shoulder and a hand will linger just a little extra long. There were bigger things going on. The Universe being in peril can kind of put any of your romantic interests on a back burner. But they’d hit a lull in missions and had some down time. And Shiro kept having dreams of Keith, of the brightest fire and the biggest star in his galaxy. Maybe it was his subconscious saying it's time to talk.

Shiro had made it to the training deck to find Keith (shocker), just as he was toweling off from a work out, Pidge seated nearby on the floor with a laptop in her lap. She’d been working with Keith in developing a wider variety of moves and levels for the training bots.

“Keith,” he called as he entered, also nodding to Pidge to greet her. “How are the new updates working out?”

“Actually, Pidge had this great idea,” Keith began, breathless, “to set an emergency programming for the bots to defend the castle if necessary.”

“Like Terminators,” Pidge grinned from her spot on the floor.

“Have either of you run this past Allura or Coran?” Shiro asked.

They looked at each other sheepishly. “Well,” Pidge began, “Not exactly.”

“As in no,” Keith said. Ever blunt and to the point.

“Alright then. The two of you take a break from this until you get approval. And Keith? I’d… like to speak with you.” It had been so casual a moment ago, but now Shiro could feel his face heating up just the slightest, could feel his nerves starting to take hold.

“Oh, okay. Is something wrong?” Keith asked

“No! No, it’s just. I wanted us to go out--Flying! To go out flying..” He stammered, barely remembering the last time he'd been this flustered.

Shiro decided he wanted to take them out for a ride in Black to talk things out. It’s what he would have done on Earth, except they’d go out in his old beat up Jeep on some back roads and park somewhere so they could star gaze. He had to adjust now that they were actually in space, in the stars. So a ride out in Black seemed best. Except Keith misunderstood.

“Okay, I’ll just suit up and go get Red. Do you wanna run some flight maneuvers or something?” “No, no. I thought we’d both go out in Black. Together.” “But why would we both go in Black? I pilot Red, she’s my lion…”

“No, Keith, I know, just…” Shiro reached for a way to explain without explicitly saying, "Hey, I wanna confess my feelings to you!" But sometimes Keith just… didn’t get things.

“KEITH,” Pidge called over from her spot. “Forget about Red. Forget about flight maneuvers and training. Just go on a ride with Shiro in Black.”

Keith turned to look at her with a blank look while Shiro looked at her gratefully.

“Go!” She said to them, shooing them out of the training deck. “You kids have fun now, use protection, be safe!” She shoved them out and closed the doors on them.

“What protection?!” He yelled back to the door. “I always keep my bayard on me!”

Shiro stood awkwardly, hand behind his head and curled in his hair while he sighed and his cheeks burned red. Keith looked up at him curiously.

“Shiro, what’s going on?”

“Keith, I…” he almost came clean right then to clear up the confusion. But no, he wanted to go about this a certain way. “I just want us to go for a ride together. And maybe… Talk about some things.”

Keith still looked curiously at him, but nodded as they walked to the hangar in awkward silence.

They settled into Black’s cockpit, setting an easy course around the castle. He looked over and smiled at Keith a few times, who looked more comfortable now that they were settled and watching the stars in the distance.

Shiro looked out into the vast expanse of space laid out in front him, took in the beauty and let his nerves calm. He found strength in stars, always had. It wasn’t lost on him that he saw Keith as one of the brightest stars he’s ever known. And sitting next to him in the cockpit of his lion, floating around the great unknown felt right. He could only hope he wasn’t about to ruin anything with what he had to say. But he truly felt that Keith felt the same way about him. He could hear feel his heart against his chest, but he was ready.

“You know,” Shiro began. “This all feels so surreal sometimes.” Keith looked over to him, but didn’t say anything, waiting for Shiro to continue. And so he did.

“All those times we would sit and look up at the night sky, we always knew, or at least hoped, we’d be up here. But being up here is… It’s nothing I ever imagined.”

Keith smiled a little softly, thinking back on their time together before. “To be fair,” he said, “I think any trained space explorer would find fighting an alien war with robotic alien space cats is a little surreal.” Shiro laughed at that, ice officially broken. He started to loosen up. This was Keith, blunt, angry, passionate, strong, yet somehow all at once tender and kind. And Shiro had to tell him how he felt. It was long overdue.

“In those days, we–” Shiro paused, not knowing how to continue. He’d thought out in his head a hundred different ways he could word this, how he could say this, and at that moment they all failed him. Keith was looking at him with those open violet eyes, just simply waiting. Shiro seemed to be the only thing Keith had no problem waiting for. And Shiro knew how hard patience was for him and didn’t want to keep him waiting any longer.

“I love you, Keith.” He said it. He said it simply and plainly. He’d thought of leading in with reminiscence, with long worded confessions, but in the end it was just saying it that seemed the best. Then he elaborated, “I love you. Before all of this, I loved you. You’re strong, you’re stubborn, you’ve got fire and fight in you, a fire burning brighter than any I’ve ever seen. I don’t want to beat around this anymore. This has been a long time coming and I’ve been thinking about this and so I just wanted you to know. That I love you... _so_ much.”

Keith looks at him like he’s speechless. Shiro can’t blame him, having just had to listen to a love confession from your best friend, but a bigger part of Shiro wants him to smile and put his arms around him and say that he loves Shiro, too.

A moment passes and it doesn’t happen. And Shiro panics, tries to think of how he can backpedal.

“Keith I know this might be a lot, and I’m sorry. But it’s been building up in, building up for years, and I needed to let it out. I needed to know if you feel the same, too. But it’s okay if you don’t, Keith. I hope it doesn’t change anything, but–”

And that’s when he felt Keith’s lips on his. It was a modest first kiss, Keith's fingers twisted in Shiro’s shirt to pull him in close, lips pressed softly to his, eyes closed and a tear running down his face. Shiro brings up his flesh palm to rest on the side of Keith’s face and wipe his tear. The dam has been broken, they're drowning in the undertow of emotions, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Why are you crying?” Shiro asks when they part, smiling, but feeling his own eyes sting as well.

“I…” Keith starts. “I just. I love you. I was just waiting. Because of everything I just… I didn’t want to tell you but I love you so, so much, Shiro. I’ve never been so close to anyone before, never felt this way about anyone. When you were gone…” They hadn’t really talked about that time too much, Shiro knowing that Keith was lost and hurting and probably never wanting to relive that time in his life. Not to mention Shiro still had huge chunks of that time missing from his mind.

“Shhh, It’s okay, Keith. I’m here now. And you know what? We’re going to be okay.” He wrapped his arms around Keith tighter, who pressed his head against Shiro’s chest. Shiro kissed his head. “Everything’s okay. Happy Valentine’s Day, Keith.”

Keith pulled away and looked up at him with red rimmed eyes. “It’s Valentine’s Day? God, you would pick the cheesiest day to lay all of your feelings on the table.”

“That’s right I did. What do you say we head back to the castle and have a dinner for two? Maybe with some candles. Do you think that Alteans used candles?”

“Shiro? Can we just… stay like this for a while?”

Shiro smiled down at him, seeing Keith was still feeling raw and vulnerable and just wanted to stay in Shiro’s arms a bit longer.

“Of course.”

The stars shined around them as they stared out at them from the cockpit. In some ways it was almost like before, but this was better. They were no longer just barely touching. They were holding each other, solid warmth spreading through each other from their body heat, along with a warm feeling that told them everything was okay. Everything was right. And they felt that feeling every day after, even with the Galra raining hell down on them. When everything seemed lost, they still had this to pull each other back home. They were finally home.


End file.
